the list of 9 for october 22, 2009:
NINE FAMOUS NON-ANGELENOS WHO DIED IN LOS ANGELES
There's a saying: Somebody moves to Manhattan and five minutes later he calls himself a NewYorker, while somebody lives in Los Angeles for twenty years and he still says he's from somewhereelse. What defines an "Angeleno" when one is not born and raised here? How long do you have tolive in this city before calling yourself a local? For the purposes of this list, I'm going todefine Angelenos as those who spend more than half of their active careers living andworking here. In this respect, Groucho Marx, Alfred Hitchcock and Charlie Chaplin were allAngelenos, whereas Bertolt Brecht, William Faulkner and Kurt Cobain - though they all spent timehere - were not. Nor were the following nine people, who nevertheless met their mortal end in theCity of Angels and its environs.

  1. GEORGE GERSHWIN, 1937. Like most in this list, Gershwincame to Hollywood for the work, but it was only towards the end of his short life, and only afterhe - like many creative people during the first half of the 20th century - produced the bulk ofhis work while living in New York and, later, Paris. He died of a brain tumor in Hollywood at just38 years of age.

  2. JELLY ROLL MORTON, 1941. The New Orleans-born-and-bredMorton was arguably the inventor of jazz music. He never lived in Los Angeles, but was here on avisit attempting to restart his career when he died of complications from knife wounds received ina club in Washington D.C. a few years earlier. His exact age is unknown, but he was in his 50s. Heis actually buried in Los Angeles.

  3. ROBERT F. KENNEDY, 1968. The only notable assassination tooccur in the city of LA, Democratic presidential candidate Kennedy was campaigning at theAmbassador Hotel when he was gunned down by Sirhan Sirhan, an Arab nationalist (and a Christian).RFK, like many on this list, died young. He was 42.

  4. F. SCOTT FITZGERALD, 1940. The Minnesota-born author ofThe Great Gatsby was another New York/Paris denizen, until financial worries brought him toHollywood in the late '30s to write screenplays. He had not yet finished his fifth novel TheLast Tycoon when he died of a heart attack at his girlfriend's apartment in West Hollywood, ablock away from his own. He was 44. Another notable writer not often associated with Los Angeles,Theodore Dreiser, the outspoken socialist author of An American Tragedy, diedin LA at 74.

  5. JANIS JOPLIN, 1970. Believe me, I looked for more famouswomen who did not live in Los Angeles yet died here, but the legendary '60s blues/rock singerstands alone. Raised in Port Arthur, Texas, and becoming a star in San Francisco, Joplin wasrecording an album in LA when she overdosed on heroin in her hotel room at the age of 27.

  6. GEORGE HARRISON, 2001. The former Beatle spent the bulk ofhis life in England, though he was wealthy enough to own homes all over the world. But it was in arented Hollywood Hills mansion, reportedly once leased by Paul McCartney, where Harrison actuallypassed, after unsuccessfully seeking treatment for lung cancer. He was 58.

  7. SERGEI RACHMANINOFF, 1943. Just four days shy of his 70thbirthday, the great Russian pianist and composer, who emigrated to the United States in 1918 afterfleeing the Russian Revolution, died of melanoma at his home in Beverly Hills. It's not certainhow long he lived here - Rachmaninoff was a world traveler - but it's estimated that he moved toBeverly Hills less than two years before his death.

  8. TRUMAN CAPOTE, 1984. Born in New Orleans, raised inAlabama, the toast of the town in New York City, author/socialite Truman Capote breathed his lastin the LA home of Joanne Carson, ex-wife of Tonight Show host Johnny. A lifetime of heavydrinking finally got the best of Capote's liver. He was 59. Some of his ashes are interred in atomb in the Westwood area of Los Angeles.

  9. R. BUCKMINSTER FULLER, 1983. I could have ended this listwith John Belushi, who famously died in 1982 (at 33) of a drug overdose at the ChateauMarmont in West Hollywood. (Belushi, raised in Chicago, spent most of his short career in NewYork.) But everybody knows about that, so instead I'll discuss the eccentric architect Fuller,visionary designer of the geodesic dome and other oddball marvels. Raised in the Northeast,Fuller taught in universities all over the country, but it was in Los Angeles, while tending tohis comatose wife, where Fuller suffered a fatal heart attack, dying just 36 hours before hisspouse at the ripe old age of 87. I have not been able to find out why or when the Fullers camehere in the first place.

Copyright © Mark Tapio Kines 2011